User talk:Invisionary/Primary Ad Draft
This is a draft of a post I plan on making to various RM sites telling them about the wiki and to attempt to get an endorsement. Get your webmaster to look at this. Seriously, do it. They need to see this. This isn't an ad, not really. This is more a request for your site and its webmaster(s) to overcome an unnecessary paranoia. Some of you may not of noticed, but the official RPG Maker articles on Wikipedia are buried in dispute over trivial matters, most of which concern the idea of what does or does not count as a "notable" object to mention. That thing isn't going to go anywhere with that kind of self-destructive attitude. Granted, it is supposed to be an "official, fully legal" article about the RPG Maker series as a whole, but still, the most active contributors to the article are behaving like children. Therefore, an alternate Wiki needed to be made, free from the influence and strictness of the official Wikipedia. http://rpgmaker.wikia.com/ This RPG Maker Wiki is the answer. This RPG Maker Wiki has had considerable effort put into its construction to make it have the most potential for acceptance by RM creators and RM webmasters alike. If you're one of these people, please recognize the prime directive of this Wiki: to be exactly what the RPG Maker community as a whole needs in a wiki. As such, we are in no way interested in "advertising" it the general sense of the term, because the RPG Maker Wiki is non-competitive in nature. Don't confuse this with "uncompetitive", this RPG Maker Wiki is just humanitarian in nature, and as such has no interest (unlike the rest of you) in attempting to become the "OMG BEST RPG MAKER SITE EVAR!" All that matters to us is helping the RPG Maker community thrive, and getting stuck up in lack of a better word "worldly" goals would be detrimental to our cause. Several acts have been put into effect for this purpose: * We will never host games, that's your specialty, RM webmasters. * We will never produce resources ourselves, that's your specialty, RM sites. * We will allow literary (as in not audio/visual) resources to be contributed by RM sites. (as opposed to individuals) This is done in the spirit of wishing to retain our neutrality. * We will allow anyone to create articles about their RM game(s), (so long as enough effort is put into the article) primarily because we know very well the frustration we all get going around to the various RM sites and trying to get the same visual effect As you can see, this RPG Maker Wiki is not like other RM sites. Pretty much every other RM site out there has to advertise mainstream (That is, to say "don't use their product, buy mine!" everywhere its supporters go.) but this wiki CANNOT and SHOULD NOT advertise mainstream because it's a humanitarian utility. This RPG Maker Wiki -- if it's going to go anywhere that actually means something -- needs to be endorsed by webmasters to their members. That is, publicly announce that they support what this wiki is doing and recommend their members use it too. I've left this next part for last because it goes into the practical aspect of what exactly this RPG Maker Wiki can do for you and your site. The usefulness to RM webmasters ...that is, the webmasters and staff of RPG Maker-oriented fan sites, mostly consists of three things: *Get in free plugs for your site, *'Show off' your site's unique talents, and *'Store backups' of your site's literary resources in case something FUBARs. Free plugs :The RPG Maker Wiki is announcing a RESOURCE DONATION SYSTEM where a site can donate literary resources (we don't accept or allow audio or visual resources, for reasons of wanting to remain non-competitive) to the wiki. Each and every one of your site's donated literary resources can then sport a HUGE banner at the top thanking you and inviting the viewer to your site. Show off :Other RM sites are going to be donating resources, so you don't want to be left out now do you? Proudly display the skill and expertise of your site's staff and members, then show off your site's amassed collection side-by side with theirs with a special category tailored just for your site that shows links to all your site's donated resources at a glance. Store backups :Every literary resource you donate counts as a backup copy of that resource so in case something happens to your site down the line (Hey, it happens.) and you accidentally lose it, you've still got the one you kept here. Additionally, if problems are found with the resource in the future, the writer of the resource (or any caring user) can just come here and fix it immediately without the inconvenience of going through a middle-man. (Of course, it's highly recommended that the writers of those articles register an account with us and set those pages to be "watched" so no one gets away with vandalizing them.) Not to mention if it comes right down to it you can request that the resource's article be locked so no one can mess with it unless you ask us to unlock it. (This doesn't apply to articles which are about a generic or common tutorial or script such as a "running" tutorial, which might have all its renditions stored on the same article together for ease-of-use. If the other sites that have a resource there don't want it locked, we shouldn't have to lock it just for you.) Please read the before you get started. The usefulness to RM creators ...that is, those that actually make games, also mostly consists of three things: * Index your game with the shockingly simple ' ', * An article you can link to and edit from anywhere, and * A way to cut out the middle-man when it comes to getting your game's info updated. Category Tag System :Wikis use categories to link together large groups of related articles easily. An easy-to-understand system has been set up so that with the addition of a couple of the appropriate your game is instantly added to the network of categories people can access via the Main Page or the sidebar. You'll also see that on most of these categories they actually mention the exact category tag you'd add to an article to have it be added to that category. All you do is copy and paste. Keep in mind though that which articles are in what categories are being watched, so there's no reason to purposely add the wrong tags to your article just so it'll get noticed. Link to and edit from anywhere :You've probably done it at least 2-3 times. You have this big long post about your game that you've written up, and you go to a forum where you want to post a thread with it, and then you get there and some of the formatting tags (such as the tag) don't work consistently or at all from forum to forum. However, if you make an article here, you won't have to go through the tremendous hassle of going around to each and every one of those forums (and some of you don't even remember all the forums you posted the info to) and editing in the new information on your game while complying with their tag and formatting rules. NO, you just post one link to your game's article in the the first post of each forum's thread, then just bump the topic when new info is available. That sure cuts down on the workload now, don't it. Cut out the middle-man :For those of you that already have your game hosted on some RM site, for most of you the game's page (if any) displays only a tiny description of your game without going into any detail. Even if they do put some detail into it, you can't edit or update that info whenever you like. However, if instead you have your host put a link to your game's article in that tiny page, you can update the description however you like, because at that point you've cut out the middle-man in updating your game's info. You can add on or change any information as you see fit, so the only middle-man dealing you have to do is getting them to update your game's download itself. That's much less of a headache. Please read and look over before getting started.